Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • March 2008
  • Article
  • International Journal of Innovation Management

Linguistic Network Configurations: Management of Innovation in Design-intensive Firms

By: Claudio Dell'Era, Alessio Marchesi and Roberto Verganti
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

In today's business and academic arenas, design is more and more viewed as an important strategic resource. In fact, over the last couple of years, we have seen a real explosion in business and research literature that see scholars and companies alike trying to continuously link design to innovation and business strategy. With this paper, our intent is to understand how companies can take better advantage of this strategic resource, and in particular develop a set of organisational guidelines that can support them in this quest. To accomplish this, we analysed the innovation processes of a set of leading design driven companies in the furniture industry to identify how they develop product innovations. What we found is that they adopt particular practices and innovation approaches by collaborating with a series of interpreters; moreover they structure themselves in what we have defined as linguistic network that can vary according to specific configurations. The focus of this paper is therefore on defining and making explicit the characteristics of the linguistic network able to improve a company's capabilities to access diffused knowledge about socio-cultural models and increase the "exposure" toward context evolutions.

Keywords

Networks; Design; Innovation and Management; Product Development

Citation

Dell'Era, Claudio, Alessio Marchesi, and Roberto Verganti. "Linguistic Network Configurations: Management of Innovation in Design-intensive Firms." International Journal of Innovation Management 12, no. 1 (March 2008).

About The Author

Roberto Verganti

Technology and Operations Management
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • 2020
    • Faculty Research

    Design in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

    By: Roberto Verganti, Luca Vendraminelli and Marco Iansiti
    • December 2008
    • Harvard Business Review

    Which Kind of Collaboration Is Right for You?

    By: Roberto Verganti and Gary P. Pisano
    • 2008
    • Faculty Research

    Collaborative Architectures for Innovation

    By: Gary P. Pisano and Roberto Verganti
More from the Authors
  • Design in the Age of Artificial Intelligence By: Roberto Verganti, Luca Vendraminelli and Marco Iansiti
  • Which Kind of Collaboration Is Right for You? By: Roberto Verganti and Gary P. Pisano
  • Collaborative Architectures for Innovation By: Gary P. Pisano and Roberto Verganti
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College.